Got an Xbox 360 and well, play games? According to Xbox Rewards: Take Your Gaming to the Next Level (from MS newsgroup), they’ll be awarding players based on how many GP gamer points they currently have. If you look at my side bar, I currently have 945. Pretty weak, I know, but I’m not really much of a gamer. The prizes will be distributed as follow:
- Level 1 (0 – 4,999 annual Gamerscore): You are developing your skills and gaining experience. Take some time to get used to the program and learn your way around. The Challenges will typically be easier and the rewards smaller. Prizes include: The popular Xbox Live Arcade game Contra (rated: E10+) from Konami (Retail Value $5.00). Exclusive Old Spice Level 1 Xbox Rewards gamer picture. An experience upgrade to Xbox Rewards Level 2.
- Level 2 (5,000 – 9,999 annual Gamerscore): We are going to turn up the heat a bit. You have proved that you know how to play and are willing to put in the gaming time to reap the benefits. The Challenges will get a bit more difficult. Never fear, the reward value goes up as well. Prizes include: The popular Xbox Live Arcade game Contra (rated: E10+) from Konami Exclusive Old Spice Level 2 Xbox Rewards gamer picture. 100 Microsoft Points. An experience upgrade to Xbox Rewards Level 3.
- Level 3 (over 10,000 annual Gamerscore): This is an arena filled with the who’s who of gaming. We don’t want to claim that Level 3 is an exclusive club, but if you find yourself winning Challenges here, you’ve obviously pulled out the big guns, so enjoy while it lasts. Prizes include: The popular Xbox Live Arcade game Contra (rated: E10+) from Konami Exclusive Old Spice Level 3 Xbox Rewards gamer picture. 200 Microsoft Points. Old Spice T-Shirt (Estimated Retail Value $10.00). A copy of Fuzion Frenzy 2 game (rated: E10+) (Estimated Retail Value $50.00).
Unfortunately I doubt I’ll be able to reach 5k given that amount of time, but this program is rather neat. The registration begins on February 12th at www.xbox.com/rewards. Enjoy!
Random Crap:
If Peter Griffin had a real daughter (from ApeChild)
12 second Cure for Hiccups (from Digg) – an interesting idea where you hold your breath while stretching and bending your abdomen. Personally the holding breath trick usually works. If not, I pretend to take gulps of air down my air pipe (simulating drinking gulps of water without breathing).
People have been asking me what the difference between XP and Vista is and I really can’t give much of a good answer. There’s better security, nicer UI, tons of revamped applications, etc. Others also have been asking me what the difference between the versions (Ultimate, Home, Business, etc) were. I found this site: Windows Vista Home Basic, Home Premium, Business, Enterprise and Ultimate – Comparison. They do a pretty good comparison between the versions, showing you what each version has and what each version is missing.
I was watching this magic trick: Jeremy Wai – Shadow Card Magic and the after clicking on a few more videos, I ended up here: Easy Float and the music was captivating. It sounded very much like ERA, but if it was ERA then I should’ve heard of it before. Apparently not. The song was indeed ERA and it’s called Ameno (Remix) on their 1st album.
How the “Pavement Picasso” Does It (from MS newsgroup) – A time lapse video of Julian Beever creating the Aveeno Fountain of Youth chalk drawing in Union Square, NYC on 01/15/07. See a full gallery of Julian’s work at pavementpicasso’s photos. They also posted this video: Julian Beever ( The Amazing Art of Julian Beever ) – Take a look at The Amazing Art of Julian Beever. It is hard to believe what you are seeing. This video meets VPG standards. You’ve probably seen all those 3D pavement drawings or sometimes referred to as Virtual Street Reality. The 1st video shows you how one actually does it.
The Eye of Sauron – Tesla Coils (from Tesla Downunder)
Transcript: U.S. ‘friendly fire’ video (from Derek) – The Sun newspaper in Britain has released what it says is a cockpit video from a U.S. fighter jet being used in the investigation of a “friendly-fire” incident in which a British soldier was killed. You can watch the videos here:The “friendly-fire” death of a British soldier in Iraq. (p1) and The “friendly-fire” death of a British soldier in Iraq. (p2). I was shocked with today’s technology that we’re still unable to correctly identified friendly units. There was a phrase in the transcript I wasn’t familiar with: Hey, POPOV34, abort your mission. You got a, looks we might have a blue on blue situation. According to Wikipedia: The U.S. and British military refer to these incidents as blue on blue,[2] which derives from military exercises where friendly forces are “blue” and enemy forces are “red”.
Windows Vista’s SuperFetch and ReadyBoost Analyzed (from B$) – Vista comes with two mechanisms that effectively reduce the time required to launch popular applications: SuperFetch analyzes your behavior and proactively puts applications into available main memory, so they can be launched quicker. Of course this requires as much main memory as possible, which is where the second feature engages: ReadyBoost allows expanding the main memory size by plugging in a USB 2.0 Flash drive. Although the data transfer performance of USB 2.0 devices cannot compete with modern hard drives, access times for Flash memory are literally nonexistent, making these devices a nice and particularly cheap choice. Derek’s been using ReadyBoost and has nothing but praise for it, but for the price of 1 stick of flash memory (free after rebate), I’d be definite to try out these features.
My name got posted in The Consumerist: House Burglar’s Advice For Hiding Money. 😉
All about your child’s allowance (from The Consumerist) – a very good guide on when to start teaching your kids about money and how to train them.
As soon as your child begins to express a sincere interest in material wants (as in, “I want that!”), it’s time for an allowance. Depending upon the child, that’s probably around the ages of 3 to 5.
The first mistake most parents make is starting too late. The majority of parents wait until their children are tweens (9 to 12 years old) and they miss out on the opportunity to discuss money with young children who are more apt to listen to, and take, their parent’s advice. By the time kids are teenagers, they have additional influences on their spending habits, including friends, advertisements, pop culture and the media.
Woman uses daughter’s key to ‘steal’ car – A college student who reported that his car was stolen got a surprise when he learned a woman had mistaken it for her daughter’s car and taken it- using her key. … Toyota spokesman Bill Kwong said key technology wasn’t as sophisticated two decades ago, and there were only so many ways to cut a key, making it possible for such a mix-up to occur. He said the company now has a microchip embedded in the keys for 90 percent of its vehicles that allows them to start only with the correct key.